Movement is sometimes an adequate substitute for action. I had nothing else to do, and no one else to see, so I drove out to West L.A. looking for Sondra Lee. The blonde receptionist with the long thighs was there again. She told me that Sondra Lee was expected in the next half hour, and I sat on one of the silver tweed couches with no arms that curved along the left wall of the office. On the walls, in silver frames, were fashion shots of their clients, black and white theatrically lit, with the archness that only fashion photographers can capture. Sondra was one of them, in profile, gazing into some ethereal beyond, wearing an enormous black and white hat. Which was much more than she was wearing in the picture I had rolled up in my pocket. Time edged past like a clumsy inchworm. A tall, thin, overdressed woman came in and picked up some messages from the receptionist and went back out. Another woman, raven hair, pale skin, carmine lipstick, came in and spoke to the receptionist and passed on into one of the inner offices. I looked around, spotted an ashtray on a silver pedestal, dragged it close to me, got out a cigarette and lit it. I dropped the empty match into the ashtray and took in some smoke. There was a big clock shaped like a banjo on the wall back of the receptionist. It ticked so softly it took me a while to hear it. Occasionally the phone made a soft murmur and the receptionist said brightly, 'Triton Agency, good afternoon.' While I was there she said it maybe 40 times, without variation. My cigarette was down to the stub. I put it out in the ashtray and arched my back, and while I was arching it in came Sondra Lee. She was wearing a little yellow dress and a big yellow hat. She didn't recognize me, even when I stood up and said, 'Miss Lee.'
She turned her head with that impersonal friendly look that people get who are used to being recognized.
'Marlowe,' I said. 'We had a talk at your home the other day about Les Valentine, among other things.'
The smile stayed just as impersonal, but it got less friendly.
'And?' she said.
'And we had such fun that I wanted to talk a little longer.'
'I'm sorry, Mr. Marlowe, I'm afraid I can't. I have a shoot this afternoon.'
I walked across to her, and as I went I took the naked picture of her from my inside pocket and unrolled it. I held it so that she could see and the receptionist couldn't.
'Just a few moments,' I said. 'I thought you might be able to help me with this picture.'
She looked at it, and her faced showed nothing.
'Oh, all right,' she said. 'We can talk in here.'
She led me into a small dressing room with a big mirror ringed with lights. There was a make-up table full of jars and tubes and powders and brushes, a tool in front of it, a daybed against the wall to the right of the door, and a tall director's chair. On the back of the black canvas was written
'So you are just another little nasty blackmailer,' she said evenly.
'I'm not so little,' I said.
'For your information, you roach, I'll give you exactly nothing for those pictures. That's what they're worth. Send them to the magazines, post them in the bus terminal, I don't care. It's thirty years past the time when pictures like that could hurt me.'
'So they weren't much good to Larry Victor,' I said.
'No more than they are to you, cheapie,' she said. She took out a pastel filtered cigarette and put it in her mouth and lit it with a transparent lighter that showed you how much fluid was left.
'But he tried,' I said.
'Sure he tried, don't all the scum balls try?'
'And you told him to breeze,' I said.
'Tommy did,' she said.
'And maybe you put a little something behind it,' I said.
Sondra shrugged. 'You're lucky Tommy's not here now,' she said.
'Yeah,' I said. 'I barely escaped with my life last time.'
Her face said she didn't remember too much about last time.
'I was at your house,' I said, 'asking you about a photographer named Les Valentine.'
'I was on a toot,' she said.
'Yeah. You suggested, as I recall, that I might want to toot along with you.'
If she remembered she didn't show it. There was no sign of embarrassment.
'Tommy hates that,' she said. She didn't sound like she cared if Tommy hated that or not. 'So what do you want, Marlowe? Or are you one of those guys gets his rocks off talking to a woman while you look at her nude picture?'
'That's one of my favorites,' I said. 'But this time I'm trying to get a handle on Larry Victor.'
She cocked her head and looked at me for a moment.
'Larry? How come?'
'Case I'm working on,' I said.
'You're not trying to shake me down?'
'I wouldn't dare,' I said. 'What can you tell me about Larry?'
'A full-fledged creepster,' Sondra said. 'Took third-rate pictures and couldn't make a living except doing nudes for skin magazines and adult bookstores. He shot a lot of us when we were new, trying to make a living, trying to get noticed. He had a nice line, scored a lot of the models. God knows why-he wore a toupee and his hands sweated all the time. But…' She shrugged. 'Takes all kinds.'
'And he'd keep prints and if you got to be an important model,' I said, 'he'd try to blackmail you.'
'Or if you got into pictures,' she said. 'Studios were always worried about that stuff. Kids that got into pictures probably did pay off.'
'Not a bad racket, then. Sells the product once and in some cases sells it again for more, later.'
'Like a growth stock,' Sondra said. She smiled and took a drag on her cigarette and held the smoke for a long moment, then let it slide out through the smile. 'Only times changed. Pretty soon no one much cared if you showed your tush in public and Larry's business took a nosedive.'
'Outmoded by changing times,' I said, 'like livery stables. Did you know he'd gotten married?'
'I lost track of Larry a while back, as soon as I climbed out of the gutter he works in.'
'And you don't know a photographer named Les Valentine?'
'No.'
'Muriel Valentine? Muriel Blackstone? Angel Victor?'
As I did the names, Sondra kept shaking her head.
'Any close friends from the old days you'd remember?' I said.
She laughed shortly. 'Friends? Not that you'd notice. If the little creep had any friends they were likely to be women.' She shook her head again. 'I never understood that,' she said.
'You can't remember any names?' I said.
She dragged in some more smoke and blew it out in a big puff. She shook her head.
'No,' she said, 'I can't.'
'And you wouldn't have a guess where he might be now?'
'Is that it? she said. 'He's missing?'
I nodded.
'No,' she said. 'No. I'd have no idea.'
I was still holding her picture. I gave it to her. She took it and looked at it.
'I was a piece of work in those days,' she said.
'Still are,' I said.
She smiled at me. 'Thanks,' she said. I turned toward the door.
'Marlowe,' she said.
I stopped with one hand on the doorknob and turned to look at her.
'I remember every detail of what happened when you visited me last time,' she said.
'Me too,' I said.
She smiled at me. 'The offer still holds,' she said.
